Red Sparowes

With Breather Resist and Zombi. Sunday, August 21, at the Grog Shop (late show).

Most bands prefer to tour with aesthetically similar peers. Hardcore bands tour with hardcore bands, death-metal bands with deathmetal bands, etc. This allows superficial differences to seem monumental and flatters genre loyalists into thinking their musical palette is broader than it is. But there are occasional surprises.

A growing mini-genre in metal can be called "NeurIsis" music, because of where its practitioners steal all their ideas. The Red Sparowes do Cult of Luna and all the others one better by actually sharing members with Neurosis and Isis. Unsurprisingly, they play slow, moody, post-industrial doom-rock, with vocals that are more decorative than dominant. Also unsurprisingly, they're really, really good at it.

Breather Resist, on the other hand, claims influences like Deadguy and the Jesus Lizard, so anticipate lots of spazzy post-hardcore flailing and a lead singer who seems destined to crash into either the audience or the drumkit before finishing any given song.

Finally, Zombi takes its inspiration from the horror-movie soundtracks of John Carpenter and Dario Argento, whose partnership with the Italian prog-rock act Goblin resulted in some of the spookiest music ever made . . . until now.